Congratulations to Carter Phillips and David "Bakes" Baker who both won their second WSOP bracelets during yesterdays play as Phillips took down Event $1500 NLHE and Baker the star studded $10k HORSE title.
Williams took down Event 31, $1500 NLHE, besting a 2,811 strong field in the process. Today started with just 19 players remaining and with former Main Event Champ Joe Cada at the top of the heap. At this stage Carter was way off the chip lead with just over half a million chips compared to the top four players, each holding between around 1.4 and 1.9 million chips.
Things quickly changes however as by the time we reached the table Cada was actually the short stack and had to keep out of trouble early on in order to give himself a chance at his second bracelet. Cada played a great final table and after taking out a couple of players on the way to the final five he found himself with a decent chip lead. This however is when Phillips put his foot on the gas, taking pot after pot to close the gap on Cada. However, Cada pulled away once more after disposing of the last woman standing, Cherish Andrews, beating her JJ with an AK which hit a gutshot straight draw on the river and then quickly bumping off third place finisher Tom Chambers with KK vs 88.
The heads up duel lasted two hours in which time the chip lead went back and forth - Cada started as a 2:1 chip leader but quickly found himself at the wrong end of the same statistic as Phillips found some hands. The crushing blow however was dealt with Cada the slight chip leader holding top pair with J 10 on a 5 2 10 9 board shoved on Phillips, only to find that Phillips had just turned a set of 9's. With Cada now crippled in chips it wasn't long before Phillips finished the job as a Cada'a shove with 9 7 was called by Phillips J 10 and a blank board handed Phillips his 2nd $1500 NLHE bracelet (he won the six handed event in 2010) and a $664k payday.
It was also bracelet number two for David "Bakes" Baker who battled hard to defeat a stellar line up in the $10k HORSE Event 32. The day started with 15 players with 2012 Stud bracelet winner John Monnette atop the leader board. Near the bottom, very short stacked sat one Phil Ivey. Things changes super quickly however as within a blink Ivey had shot up from around 100k to over 500k chips to sit among the chip leaders whereas former $50k Players Championship winner David Bach fell from second in chips to the days second elimination (Ralph Perry has fallen in the very first hand of play), also in quick order.
Monnette held onto his chip lead for a long portion of the day and still had it as play reached the final table after more eliminations including the scalps of John Hennigan and Scott Clements. By this time Ivey had climed to a close second place, bringing him his fourth final table in a little over a week. The pair were joined by another familiar final table face as Phil Hellmuth sat in the top four as the final table began (with Baker in 3rd). As the table began thinning out Monnette and Baker rose to the top, Hellmuth stayed in contention, Paul Sokoloff gained ground and Phil Ivey started to lose his way and eventually fell in fifth spot. Hellmuth didn't make it much further as he went out in 4th with Sokoloff third. With just Monnette and Baker left Monnette was at least guaranteed to pass Ivey in the WSOP POY standings as he now had at least another second place finish to go with his win in the $5k Stud event and his third place in the $5k Stud Hi-Low.
Heads up play lasted 90 minutes with play once again swinging back and forth until a very large stud hand crippled Monnette and five minutes later the match was over with Baker claiming his second WSOP bracelet in three years.
Event 33 ($1k NLHE) played down to 14 players yesterday from the starting 2,795 entrants all chasing the bracelet and the $440k first prize. The chip leader going into todays play is Vitaly Meshcheriakov with $1.5k PLO bracelet winner Vincent van der Fluit among the chip leaders chasing Meshcheriakov. The bracelet will be decided today and we'll see if Vincent can become the first multiple bracelet winner of these Championships.
Two new events started yesterday as both the $5k PLO six handed event and the $2.5k mixed hold'em got underway. After one days play the $5k PLO 72 of the starting 419 players remain with former Full Tilt pro David Benyamine leading the pack with 248k chips, closely followed by multiple SCOOP champion Shaun Deeb on 231k. Other big names also in contention include JC Tran, Joseph Cheong, Aubin Cazals and Erick Lindgren. The $2.5k mixed hold'em attracted a field of 393, whittled down to 88 by the end of the day. When play resumes today the chip leader will be Team PokerStars Pro, Brazilian Andre Akkari who will be looking to repeat his performance at last years WSOP where he took down a Hold'Em event ($1500 NLHE). He will have a lot of tough competition with him at the tables however as way up on the leader board also sit David Williams, Frank Kassela, Isaac Baron, Bryan Devonshire and James Dempsey. Also sitting on an above average stack is Phil Ivey, who despite entering the event five hours into play after busting in 5th in the $10k HORSE event, managed to play an aggressive game to put himself in contention as the event goes into day 2.
Find more of the latest news and articles relating to the World Series of Poker in the 2012 WSOP-section.